I should be painting...

but I wanted to share some pics from some recent orders:

The two ladies and their goats ( Goat farmers from Australia)

Another super cute family from Australia.

Dad and son in their favorite football jerseys and Mom in her team's scarf.

 

A custom family from California....lots of little details in this one... little girl has a bicycle and a violin, son with his power drill and book, etc.

A nice and simple custom couple! They were really cute in pictures and as peg dolls.

My hand after painting. I hold the doll in my left hand and paint with my right.

So naturally, my left hand ends up being a paint palette.

 I will finish my last 8 orders this week, then I won't be painting until after the holidays are over. Yay!

I am looking forward to a little break to get my life back in order and to having some real quality time with the family during this precious time of year.

Scenes...

I've received several new orders for my dolls lately. I am officially making a profit!  I keep setting deadlines and limits for what I can accomplish before Christmas and realizing that, no wait, I CAN take another order; I can do it, I'll get it done in time. At some point there has to be a limit to the orders I can finish before 25th. But for now, I am pushing that limit. I hate to miss any opportunity to make a sale right now:)

Oh, and my shop was mentioned in a children's toys feature this week on http://theamberlily.com/.  ( really exciting!)

In order to get them all done, I am working during the day, too. I have always painted at night after the children go to bed. Now I set up at the kitchen table right after breakfast with coffee, computer tuned to Pandora, paint, dolls, and camera.

Meanwhile, something has to give:

 

at least its folded....

The children still manage to entertain themselves.

Elijah wishing he could climb inside the light box to take picture with the peeps.

 

she keeps me laughing

My First Paid Order

I am so happy to report that I am having a bit of success at selling my silly little painted people.

A friend who saw pics on of them on facebook ordered 36 dolls to match her entire family! And I just took another order for a custom family from someone who found me on etsy! Yippee!

Its not a flood of work, but it is a beginning and certainly enough to give me confidence to go on.

My first customers have not given my pictures to work with, just a few descriptive phrases, so there is a lot of guesswork involved and I hope that I've done well for them.

 Here are some pictures of the first of the customs:

 S plays golf

 P plays guitar, CS loves cooking, C love bikes and horse, L likes bugs.

the two cooks:

B. the hunter and S. likes to read

 R. loved motorcycles and M. (all I got for her was: brown, olive, cactus- so this what I did)